


Give What You Can Never Take

by ObsidianRomance



Series: Blood Borne Apocolypse 'Verse [3]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Apocalypse, M/M, Mpreg, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:32:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianRomance/pseuds/ObsidianRomance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place ten months after Losing What You Never Gave.<br/>Jared and Jensen find  a way to make a permanent home for themselves in a world of the dead. Only they learn the hard way that you can't keep the dead out, not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give What You Can Never Take

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: zombies, light gore, cursing, ANGST, male lactation, postmpreg!Jensen, sick babies, light J2 humping, horror  
> Word Count: 6,300  
> Rating: Hard R  
> Beta: tsubasalove87

The porch door swings closed behind him as he pushes outside and Jensen lets it make a reverberating hollow banging sound.  It still feels odd to not worry about making noise, Jensen’s habits of creeping and moving with calculated stealthy movements dying hard.  He tested out their new freedom to be more unrestrained in little ways, like letting the door slam or purposely stepping on the one squeaky stair in the old house they had made a home.

The noise still makes him tense, like he has to brace for some sort of aftermath.  But nothing happens, not any more.  This is great because Evan’s loud peel of laughter carries through the air.  It is sad that even that happy sound makes Jensen’s gut twist and eyes dart around in search of trouble.

A child’s laughter should not be equated with being a calling card for the undead.  But it is, or at least it was.

Keeping their kid quiet is a problem he is glad they found a solution for.

Outside, Jared is sitting in the grass trying to get Evan to walk towards him.  The baby isn’t playing by Jared’s rules.  Every time Jared reaches out to stand Evan on his little bare feet, the boy wobbles, falls on his butt, laughs, and starts to crawl towards his father.

Every time.

Jensen leans against a weathered wooden beam that holds up the porch’s overhang and crosses his arms over his chest.  The gun at his side juts into his hip as he rests more of his weight, almost forgetting it is there until he feels the discomfort.  He didn’t need the gun lately; but, as with the noise, old habits die hard.

He watches his son – his one year old – fall on his butt again and cannot believe Evan is still here.

Well, that isn’t entirely true.  He can believe it.  Evan has Jared and Jensen protecting him, of course he would still be alive.  It’s just that, a year ago, Jensen would have never imagined the scene in front of him.

This scenario wasn’t supposed to happen, it wasn’t in their plans, but it happened anyway.  He was _supposed_ to leave Evan to his own fate right after his birth and that thought made guilt start to tug and destroy a part of Jensen he’d been bottling up for months.

He can’t remember why he ever thought he would let fate intervene anyway.  He and Jared never played by her rules and it was foolish to assume that Evan wouldn’t be the same way.

Watching Evan now, it is easy to forget the hardships of the last few months.  Seeing the boy give a toothy grin when he finally reaches Jared, it is impossible to avoid the pure adoration and innocence.  To Evan, Jared isn’t the merciless killer that helped them survive.  He’s just a dad who gave Evan his first taste of solid food and tickles the bottom of his feet whenever he gets a chance.

Jensen is still tense, still, even months after finding this spot of normalcy in the world, unable to let go of the habits that have kept them alive for the past years.  He should be able to relax but he can’t.  After the things he has seen and done, he is never going to be able to relax again.

His mind reels back to things he will not let himself forget because he needs to keep them fresh so that he doesn’t get slow or careless.

The farmhouse took months to feel comfortable enough to be referred to as “home” and made it easy to forget the rest of the world was swarming with the undead

Memories flash in fast motion through his brain.  He remembers the night they came across “home”; it was dark and freezing and Jensen wasn’t sure they would last much longer out in the open if they don’t find shelter soon.  Evan was bundled up in as many layers as they could get him in while still being able to strap him into a makeshift carrier on Jensen’s back.  It was Jensen who usually traveled with Evan on his back when they were traveling on foot because he was a better shot than Jared.  It gave Jared the freedom to tackle zombies with more physical actions, using his skill with a knife and hoping Jensen kept enough corpses from getting too close with his rifle.

Strategy wise, their arrangement made sense.  Jensen liked it better that way anyway.  He trusted Jared with his and Evan’s life, but Evan had come out of him and there was still an invisible thread linking them together.  He felt comforted having a more hands on role in Evan’s safety.

Jared understood.  It was how Jensen always was.  Jensen was one of those people who needed to ‘see’ everything with his hands because eyes just weren’t enough.  He was a “let me do it” type of person.  It’s why he and Jared get along so well.  They have very distinct and different strengths and Jensen respected that.  He knows when he needs to say “let me do it” and when he needs to fall back and let Jared do it.

They had been traveling for days, weeks, _months_.  Time didn’t mean anything anymore but some part of Jensen’s brain kept ticking off milestones in his head.  Evan became their universal clock.  _Evan was 4 months old today.  Evan was half a year old today.  Evan cut his first tooth._ The last milestone had been particularly apparent because Jensen _felt_ that one while nursing Evan and had no idea how he would survive feeding Evan as more teeth came in.

After getting a taste of staying in one place while Evan had been suffering from his fever, Jared had been even more determined than ever to find a way to make that a more permanent way of life for them.

They traveled the country, went further north, then further west.  Then ended up in difficult to navigate dense woodland, virtually empty of the undead.

Pushing forward, they stumbled upon small town after small town.  Each one significantly less dense than the next.  They killed everything they came in contact with, scavenged every area for supplies, and kept going.  Weeks later they thought they had run through the string of populated areas but then they came across a lone farmhouse, barn and everything

It was surrounded by a fence, a _good_ fence, and it looked empty.

It wasn’t shocking when they found out it wasn’t empty.  There were corpses wandering the grounds, apparently filtering like a slow leak from the collapsed part of the fence at the back of the property.

Jared had looked at Jensen and Jensen looked back at Jared and both men knew they were holding onto the same idea.

It took 4 days and two scares to clear the property of the undead and burn the bodies.

The stench of death was heavy in the place and Jensen hadn’t seen anything like these rotting corpses.  It was like death not only trapped them in their bodies, but in the property line as well.  The rational part of Jensen’s brain knew the maggot infested walking bags of rotting skin weren’t human any more but it was almost like they knew the layout of the land.  They found ways of sneaking up on him and Jared in ways that no one or nothing has done in years.

Jensen went a little wild.  His heart dropped out when one almost – _almost_ – got its grimy hand on Evan and his world turned into a firestorm.  Even Jared was almost afraid to go near him that night when he finally came back from dicing up 25 corpses and coated himself in a repulsive splatter or congealed _everything_.

In the end, they patched up the fence.  They took turns scouting the area and killing everything in their path, zombies and wildlife included.

They hadn’t situated themselves enough to be self sufficient, so every few weeks they had to take a long trek to raid towns.  Eventually, they did this on a schedule.  Now that they had a more permanent place to rest their heads, they were able to carry more stuff with them.  In months after securing the farmhouse, they had stockpiled enough clothing for all three of them, diapers, bullets, and medical supplies.  It felt good to look at that stockpile and almost made up for the weird feeling of regret Jensen always had when he had to leave valuable supplies behind because there was only so many things two migratory people could carry.

Spring came and Jared found a way to manage the overgrown garden.  He found seeds too and tried his hand with growing crops.  Meat supplies had never been an issue, but fresh fruit and vegetables were a delicacy Jensen had forgotten.

Turned out, Jared wasn’t just good with a knife.  He couldn’t get the corn to do much of _anything_ but he did figure out how to have a healthy start to growing gourds and root vegetables.  There were even berry patches that were growing.  They were fruitless but they were growing.

Jensen left the growing business to Jared.  He was no good at it.  The only thing he was skilled at growing was a kid and he didn’t plan on doing any of that again.

By summer, Jared and Jensen had found a small life for themselves in the farmhouse.

It was almost normal.

Almost…If you could forget that you couldn’t take your kid for a weekend visit to grandma and grandpa’s because grandma ate grandpa and papa put a bullet in grandma’s head.

Papa also put a bullet in Uncle Josh’s head.  And daddy decapitated Aunt Megan.  But Jensen was sure they would love Evan very much if they had been alive to meet him and didn’t want to eat his flesh.

Thinking about how hard it was to find this farmhouse is a memory Jensen replayed in his mind every morning.  He knew that nothing was ever permanent.  Nothing except his love for Jared and Evan.

The memory takes a back seat to the present for now.  Jensen takes the three steps down from the porch and walks over to Jared.  The sun is on its way to setting and painted his husband and son in a warm orange glow

“Pa!”  Evan gives Jensen a drooly grin and reaches for him.

“Hey, Ev.”  Jensen smiles back and goes to scoop up his son but Jared stops him.  “Jare, what?”

“Wait.”  Jared grabs Evan and scoots backwards, several feet away from where Jensen had plopped himself on the ground.  Evan whines but doesn’t resist Jared and soon enough Jared has him standing on his feet, helping him balance by holding both hands for support.  “Walk to papa.”

“Jared…really?  I don’t get what is with you and this walking thing.  He gets into enough trouble with the whole crawling phase.”  Despite his words, Jensen’s heart skips at beat at the sight of his son holding Jared’s hands to steady himself as he takes a step towards him.

“I’m just trying to have a normal moment here Jensen.  I couldn’t really celebrate his first word, which was your name for the record, because I was knee deep in corpses and had my knife buried in a man’s…woman’s…something’s head.”

“Hey, at least you heard it.  And he only said it because he was scared.”  Jensen shrugs and reaches out for Evan.  “Come here Ev.”

Evan gurgles happily.  He doesn’t do anything for the moment, just blinks at Jensen with big eyes.

Evan is the spitting image of Jensen, determined glare and everything, but there are times his resemblance to Jared is unmistakeable.  Jensen's gut tugs during those time, because as much as he loves that Evan looks like him, he loves seeing Jared in the mix too.  Their son's hair has gotten long, inevitable since they never bothered to cut it.  It makes him look more like Jared since, just like his father, Evan’s longer hair looks natural on him.  It is cute because sometimes Jared pulls Evan’s hair back just like his own on hot days.  Jensen’s hair, on the other hand, always looks out of place, making him take the added time to chop it short every few weeks.

Evan takes one step and Jared lets go of his hands.  Almost instantly he falls, pausing only briefly to get onto his knees and makes shuffling type crawling movements towards Jensen.

“He’ll get it eventually.”  Jared sighs and makes his way closer to Jensen so they can sit side by side.

“Yeah.”  Jensen lets Evan crawl onto his crossed legs before thumping his butt lovingly.

They sit in silence for a while, reveling in the sounds of a warm summer afternoon, none of which are gunshots and death moans.

Eventually, Evan gets bossy and roots around Jensen’s shirt.

With a mouthful of teeth and a huge appetite, nursing Evan isn’t Jensen’s ideal situation.  But, food isn’t as balanced as it should be yet and with no vaccines on the planet any more, Jensen is willing to hang onto nursing his son as long as he can

When Evan was a baby, nursing him felt weird but unsettlingly natural.

Now that he is bigger, it still feels natural but it makes is more apparent just exactly how big Evan has grown when Jensen holds him in his arms to feed him.  He has been getting better about eating pieces of meat and Jared mashes up every vegetable they have grown, but sometimes Evan just wants Jensen.

Pulling his shirt off, Jensen kisses Evan’s forehead and shifts him to a better position across his chest.

Jensen swore that Evan had gotten noisier with the acquisition of the farmhouse, and maybe it isn’t just Jensen’s mind playing tricks on him.  He supposes that they have stopped shushing him, stopped muting his wants by preemptively giving them to him before he asks.  Now, they promote every vocalization and every sound, they almost revel in it.  It is the closest they come to life before death took over.  Evan’s voice is so full of life that it makes up for all the death.

Evan nurses loudly and sloppily, hunger making a mess out of Jensen’s nipples.  Wincing, Jensen strokes Evan’s back to slow him down, which always seems to work somehow.  He knows Jared is watching him, because when he feeds Evan it is the one time when everything truly falls away and he is stripped down.  It is a feeling he tries to hold onto now that they have the luxury to do so.

When Evan is done, he goes back to being his happy self.   Sitting a few feet away from his parents, he pulls out tufts of grass, sticking some of them in his mouth before spitting them out and getting wet blades stuck to his cheeks.

Jared laughs, using his thumb to wipe away the stuck grass, and gives Evan a dandelion to occupy him.  It is Jensen’s turn to laugh when Evan goes to stick the flower in his mouth as well, squishing up his face in distaste and flicking his tongue repeatedly to get the thing out of his mouth.

Jensen snorts.  “He looks like a dog trying to get peanut butter off the roof of his mouth.”

Their laughter dies away and Jared is quiet for a moment.  “This is nice.”

“What?  Our son turning into a herbivore?”

Jared gives a gentle smack to the back of Jensen’s head.  “No.  _This_.  Sitting here.  Laughing.  Watching Evan play in the grass without worrying that something in the grass is going to kill him.”

Smiling, Jensen nods.  “Yeah.  It’s nice.”  He watches Evan crawl a bit farther on the hunt for another dandelion

“You ever wish we could have another one?”  Jared gives Jensen a serious glance and bites the corner of his lip.

Balking, Jensen’s eyes widen.  “What?  Are you kidding me?  I mean, I _love_ him but even I don’t want to live in this world.”

“That’s not what I meant.  I meant…like…if the world was normal, if we had our old lives."

That makes Jensen think for a moment.  He rolls the idea over in his head before responding.  “If you’d push them out, then yeah, maybe.”

Almost taken aback by Jensen’s answer, Jared snorts.

“What?  You expect me to willingly do that again?”  Jensen pokes Jared in the rib.  The gesture is playful, almost odd after living so seriously for the last few years.  In little ways like that, Jensen is learning to be alive again.  “You have the same equipment.  You can have a turn.”

“Well…I…I just feel bad for Evan.  The only ones he has to keep him company are us.”

“Hey, we’re not so bad.”  Jensen’s hand crawls through the grass and grabs Jared’s.  It is another baby step in the transformation from hunter to partner.  He curls his fingers around Jared’s and traces the inside of the man’s palm with one finger.  He can tell it speeds Jared’s heart up by the way his breath hitches slightly for a moment.  It is a tiny tell, but Jensen spots it.

“No.  We’re not.”  Jared squeezes Jensen’s hand and shuffles closer.  “I just wish he could grow up with other kids.  The way we did.”

“Jared, there are a lot of things I wish.  But you and I have both learned not to give too much thought to those wishes.  We’ll just be disappointed.”

“I know.”  Jared smiles sadly and watches Evan, face lit up by the sunset, smiling at him.

Jensen sighs.  “Hey.”  He turns Jared’s face towards him.  Jared always had an easier time of dropping away the seriousness of their life and being able to lose himself in the simplicity of being a husband and a father.  It was beautiful and showed clearly in his eyes at the current moment.  “Hey, Jared, we’re doing right by him.”

“We are, right?”

“Yeah.”  Habitually, Jensen gives a quick scan of the area and a quick glance at Evan before closing his eyes and leaning in to capture Jared’s lips.

Months ago, he wouldn’t have taken his eyes off Evan.

But months ago they wouldn’t be sitting ducks in a field.

Months ago they weren’t surrounded by a wall that they reinforced themselves with a place they called their home.

Months ago Jensen wouldn’t push Jared onto his back, swing both legs to straddle his hips and kiss him so hard they both forgot the rest of the world was rotting.  But today he did.

For the first time in a long time, Jensen feels safe enough to lose himself to the ministrations of Jared’s mouth and the feeling of their tongues fucking into each other.  He feels Jared hot and hard and _alive_ rutting against his hip.  It is obvious that when Evan is asleep for the night they will both feel safe enough to get their hands on each other and bring themselves to a place of pleasure that they will let themselves dwell in until they fall asleep…together…without someone creeping out of bed in favor of the companionship of a rifle.

It’s a good night.

In the morning, when Jensen is sore in a way that makes him smile and Jared is wearing a similar look, he finally does let himself forget that it is the three of them against the world.

Breakfast is uneventful.

The perimeter check is too.

Life in the warmth of summer is easy.  Uncomplicated.  There really isn’t much to do.

No wonder Jared spend his time trying to get Evan to walk.

Eventually, Evan does walk.  He walks right to Jared, plopping down on his lap and looking all sorts of confused as to why his father is clapping, laughing and making a big fuss.

The problem is, once he started, he doesn’t seem to plan on stopping

Instead of the place of safety the house served as for Jensen, it becomes a series of accidents waiting to happen.

Luckily, there are more dangerous things on the outside of their property line and Evan seems to take well to warnings of caution.

Near the end of fall, a storm creeps in.

It rains for days, keeping the men inside for the most part.  They go in shifts to check the perimeter noting that if it doesn’t stop raining soon the property will be too saturated to hold up some of their supports.

As their crappy luck always seems to have it, it doesn’t stop raining.

Jared returns one day, soaked to the bone, to let Jensen know the rear section of the wall is down again.

He can’t do anything about it in the rain but it doesn’t seem like there are any zombies around.

For the next two days of rain, Jensen is on edge.  He is irritable and angry; he needs the fucking rain to stop so he can go protect the house he didn’t even want in the first place but has become attached to the life he built in it.

It seems like everything Jensen never planned on in life knew better.  Evan…the house…they weren’t the plan but they make Jensen feel alive.

When the rain stops and the sun shows its face, the men are out the door as soon as possible.

They’re both armed to the hilt and have Evan in tow.

Jensen knows they were in trouble the minute he hits the open air.  He smells the fresh scent of rain but it comes with something else, something he hasn’t smelt in months and it hits him hard.  His stomach revolts and he almost gags on it.

“Shit.”

Jared’s already caught onto the problem too and their movements transform into something more stealthy and graceful.

Jensen fires his gun first, bullet whizzing through the silence and knocking back a corpse ambling in the distance.

Shooting probably wasn’t the best idea because the noise attracts other zombies neither he nor Jared spotted before.  Jensen curses under his breath and can’t help but think that he wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake if his head hadn’t been out of the game so long.

Jared picks up his slack and breaks into a run.  By the time Jensen and Evan catch up, he’s got three body’s down on the ground and stomping a little too intensely on the head of another, making the skull crack like a rotting pumpkin

When Jared looks up, his face goes pale.  “Shit, Jensen.  Look.”

Jensen does.  He finds that the wall they were worried about is completely down.  It will take days to repair.  It isn’t the quick fix they had been hoping for.  There doesn’t seem to be anymore reanimated baddies lurking around in the open gap but Jensen hasn’t forgotten that appearances don’t mean anything.

He wants to scream but instead he takes it out on the nearest member of the walking dead, shifting Evan on his hip and shooting with one hand.  Evan covers his ears and screams, breaking Jensen’s heart in the process because he can’t do anything about that.

They clear out the yard as quickly and thoroughly as possible, leaving a pile of bodies in their wake.

It isn’t until later that they have the energy to _truly_ survey the wall’s damage.  Jensen puts Evan down where he can see him and take a hands on approach to inspecting the wall.  Jared is right there with him, helping him check for weaknesses in the supports and trying to figure out what they can use to repair it.

They aren’t looking when Evan toddles closer.

He is getting closer to his fathers but he is also coming dangerously close to the heap of corpses.

His scream is what gets Jensen’s attention and turns his blood cold.

Launching himself off the wall, Jensen goes in frantic search for his son, gun pulled and muscles tense.

There is another scream and he whips right, finding Evan standing near their handiwork.  Suddenly, Jared is right beside him when they both realize at the same time that one of the undead is _still_ undead and he has Evan around the ankle.

Things move in slow motion, like an accident that Jensen knows is going to happen but can’t move quick enough to stop.  The zombie is pinned by his recently departed friends but pain isn’t an issue for the creature and it pulls its way free by tearing half its spine apart.

Jensen puts a bullet in the corpse’s brain one second after it started to bite down on Evan’s shoulder.

Everything in Jensen’s world blurs and his vision tunnels.  All he can see is Evan with blood streaming down his shoulder and all he can hear are his son’s screams.

Evan _screams_.  He screams and screams and Jensen’s can’t do anything.

Jensen’s muscles aren’t working anymore because nothing matters anymore.  He shot one second too late and now his baby is going to die.

He knows he is going to be sick when his vision goes dark, spots getting in the way of seeing what is going on.  He falls to his knees and shakes, gun clattering to the ground like the useless piece of weaponry it’s just proven to be.

He pitches forward and vomits because his world is over and he failed at the only thing he’s ever been good at.

Evan is still screaming but Jensen picks up on Jared’s voice in the mix.

It doesn’t matter.

He’s in another world and everything whites out.  He’s muted to the sounds going on around him but he can see Jared clutching Evan in his arms, both of them covered in fresh blood, the fresh blood of their baby who was never supposed to get mixed up in this mess.  Jared is shaking and trying to rock Evan.  There are words coming out of his husband’s mouth but Jensen can’t hear him.  Jared’s looking at Jensen, pleading, but Jensen just hears a ringing in his ears and his heart threatening to give out.

Fingering his gun at his knees, Jensen picks it up and sees it in a light he never saw it in before.  He contemplates turning it on himself, even runs the cool metal down the side of his face and hooks it under his chin but then he drops it to his side again.

His brain is reeling

Evan just got bit.  Evan is going to die.  Evan is going to turn into one of those things.

It’s bad enough Jensen saw it happen to his family, but now he has to watch it happen to his son.

His brain gets stuck on the fact that he can stop it, he can stop the chain of horrible things.  Hand shaking, he lifts the gun and aims it directly at Evan.  He reaches up with his other hand and tries to hold the gun steady but he is shaking too much and his aim is shit.  His chest hitches on a sob and he can’t remember how to breathe as his finger starts on the trigger.

“JENSEN!”  Jared’s voice breaks through, shatters the fog of insanity taking root in Jensen’s brain.  “Jensen!”

Jensen looks up, _really_ looks.  He sees Jared with a crying Evan in his arms, sees how pale they both look.

“Oh my god.”  Dropping the the gun like it is on fire, Jensen stares at his hands in disbelief.  “Oh my god….”

“Jensen!”  Jared is crying, face sloppy with tears, spittle, and blood splatter.  He is shaking worse than Jensen and when he looks up at his husband, his eyes plead for help.  They both know there is no help but he is begging for it anyway.  “We…I…He…”  Jared’s eyes look around the yard manically.  “Help Jensen.  Help me!”

Jensen gets to his feet and closes the gap between them.  Evan isn’t screaming anymore but he is crying loudly, past the point of hysterics.  “Jare…he’s bitten.”

“No…no, he’s okay.”  Jared holds Evan tightly against his chest, rocking him too quickly to come off as normal.  He pets his hair and shushes him as he keeps dropping frantic kisses to his forehead.  “You’re okay Evan.  We’re going to make it okay.”

Voice far away, devoid of all emotions, Jensen sounds hollow.  “He’s not okay.”

“Jensen!  Don’t say that.  Don’t….he’s…he’s going to be okay.”  Jared sounds as hysterical as Evan’s cries.

“No he’s not.  He’s going to die.”

“No, no.”  Jared gets Evan out of the crook of his arm and his fingers shake as they inspect the wound.  “No, maybe it isn’t a bite.”  But they both know it is.  The teeth marks are messy but unmistakable.  There is fresh blood pulsing out and the wound is deep.  The bite may have only been one second in duration, but it was a determined bite.  “Maybe…maybe we can stitch it up….and….yeah…I can stitch it.”

Jensen can’t see anymore and he realizes it is because he is crying.  The tears make Jared and Evan a watercolor of blood and pain.  He can’t lose his son but he can’t deny that is what is going to happen.

Jared is on his feet, taking unsteady steps towards the house and something in Jensen makes him follow.

They end up in the house with Evan screaming on the kitchen table.  Jared is trying to stitch the wound up but the wound is like ground meat and he doesn’t know where to start.  The parts of Evan’s arm don’t seem to fit together, there is a piece missing.

Jared curses and falls to the floor, his hands can’t stop shaking enough to pick up the needle he dropped and he looks at Jensen.  “He’s dying.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s dying.”  Jared’s chest starts heaving unnaturally and he goes lightheaded.  “Oh god…we let him die.  We let this happen to him.”

Jensen doesn’t know what to do, he’s numb inside and out.  The only thing his senses pick up on are Evan’s voice, weak, scared and confused.

“Papa.”  Evan lets out a panicked sob and groans.

Thoughts in Jensen click together and he knows it is crazy, but he does it anyway.  He grabs the needle from the floor and stands beside Evan.  “Shh, baby.  Papa will fix it.”  But he won’t and he can’t.  He’s lying to Evan and has no idea why he is doing what he is going to do, but he does it anyway.

Jared gets on board and holds Evan down as Jensen pierces Evan’s flesh with the needle and the little boy screams louder than ever before.

By the time it is all over and Evan’s arm is an ugly stitched up scar, Jensen’s heart is bleeding out.  It is a useless cause and he can’t believe he subjected his son to that torture.  Jared looks just as destroyed, but he is shaking less and cradling Evan on his lap.

If Evan is going to die, it will not be due to a bullet from his or Jared’s gun.  He can’t do that.

When Evan dies, he will be in Jensen’s arms, ending in the exact place he began.

Eventually, Evan sleeps.  Both men don’t.  They watch him, startling almost every time he snuffles or shifts in his sleep.  Jared can’t stop petting Evan’s hair and gently fingering their son’s hand.

Jensen can’t stop holding onto false hope and squeezing Jared’s hand like a vice, tripping his finger over their wedding ring every so often.

Evan sleeps for a long time, and when he wakes up Jared stupidly pumps him full of antibiotics.  He knows it is a waste of their supplies but he won’t be able to live with himself if he treats Evan like he is dead before he actually is.

“Jare, you know he isn’t going to make it.”

Jared says nothing.  He casts his eyes downward and lets tears fall onto their baby’s form.

Somewhere into the next day, Evan is weak but still alive.  He starts crying in Jensen’s arms and fusses with Jensen’s shirt like he always does when he is hungry.

Jensen’s blood runs cold for the second time in a day.  He freezes, hoping Evan will stop doing what he is doing but Evan only get’s more determined, whining for food and babbling about it.  It is a decision he never thought he would ever have to make.  He’s faced with his toothy baby wanting to get his ‘capable of a bite’ mouth around his nipple while said baby is on the verge of joining the ranks of the undead.  His blood runs colder still when he realizes he is afraid of his son.  The weird feeling in his brain preventing him from giving into his knee-jerk reaction to feed his baby is fear.

This damn virus has driven him to fear his own child.  A tear sneaks past his defenses and Jensen curses under his breath.

Evan cries out for him again; Jensen’s heart overrides his brain and he pulls his shirt off to guide his exhausted son to his chest.  “Shh, papa has you.  You’re okay.”

Despite wanting to comfort Evan, Jensen is tense the entire time.  Jared is the one who strokes Evan’s back and watches the scene with bated breath while he wonders if he is going to lose his son and his husband in one day.  Evan eats slowly but every time he gets a little too mouthy and scrapes teeth against Jensen’s skin, the man gasps.  He hates himself for it, but the fear makes him shiver.

In the end, Evan isn’t a zombie yet and he doesn’t bite Jensen.

They carry on in silence for the rest of the night.

They feel like they sleepwalk through the next day.  Everything is more of the same.

By the next night, Evan has more energy.  Jared and Jensen exchange a glance but they don’t voice anything because it sounds too crazy to be real.

The day after, Evan is crawling again.  He cries a lot every time he puts pressure on his right arm, but he crawls.

By night time, he is readily eating the mashed carrots Jared is offering him.

On the morning of the fourth day, Evan giggles.

Jensen is shocked.  Their child has an uncanny ability to defy every obstacle in his path.  Seeing Evan smile is like permission to finally believe what he and Jared had been starting to think.

“Jen, I think he’s okay.”  Jared is just as wide eyed as Jensen when he sees Evan stumble a few times and then walk directly towards them.  He pulls the baby into his arms and holds him protectively against his chest, like he is never going to let him go.

The breath Jensen has been holding from the moment he failed to protect Evan comes rushing out of Jensen’s mouth.  In one movement, he is across the room, pulling Jared and Evan into his arms and crushing them close.  He’s crying even though he is fighting it, but the emotions of the last few days have been too much and he needs to have his family in his arms to remember that they are real, they are alive, and they are not going anywhere yet.  “Oh Ev! You’re something else.”  He kisses Evan on his crown, keeping his lips there long enough to inhale his scent

They don’t move for a long while until Evan squirms.  When they break apart, Jared puts him down carefully, treating him like he might break even though they both know better.

Evan is more resilient than the two of them combined.

Watching Evan, like staring at him can answer all the questions in Jared’s brain, he doesn’t take his eyes off his son as he speaks to Jensen.  “I think he might be immune to them.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“Jen…do you know what this means?”

Jensen does.  He just isn’t ready to deal with it after the last week.

“It means he’s the cure Jensen.  Something…something in Evan’s blood kept the virus from taking hold.  He got bit. You and I both saw it.  He should be a zombie right now but he’s not, he’s just Evan.”  Jared stands beside Jensen, heartbeat evening out with the feeling of safety he has when he is close to his husband.  “We need to get him to a larger city…Hell, Jensen, there might be people trying to cure this.  We’ve stayed out of cities for so long.  We don’t know what is going on there, if there is even a medical force stronger enough to figure this out. But…”

Jensen finishes his husband’s sentence, “We have to try.”   He knows in his heart that Jared is right.  While it would be easier to live up here in their ‘home’, it wouldn’t sit right with either of them to withhold the knowledge that could save the world for their own selfish reasons.

“Our son is not a guinea pig, but if he can save _everyone_ then…”  Jared is shaking slightly from the weight of their revelation.  “We have to go Jensen.”

“I know.”  Head heavy with information, Jensen collapses into a chair.  He hadn’t slept in days and he couldn’t handle dealing with this situation properly.  “But not today.  When Evan is stronger…when he can travel…then we go.”

Jared nods, licking his lips and scratching the back of his head nervously.

Evan hadn’t always been his beacon of hope, but he had become one at only 3 weeks of age.  Now, at one, he is giving hope to the world.  It is a weighty responsibly for someone so little, but with parents like Jensen and Jared, Evan can take it

Evan ambles towards Jensen and he scoops him into his arms and sits him on his lap.  “Baby boy, you’re going to save the world.”


End file.
